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Heroin Addiction and Related Clinical Problems: 2013, 15, 1 (pages: 29 - 38)

Drug related mortality in Slovenia: differences between deceased treated and untreated illicit drug users

Lovrečič B., Šemerl J.Š., Lovrečič M., Selb J., Tavcar R., Pacini M., Rovai L., Maremmani A.G.I., Maremmani I.

Summary: In this study we assessed, in a three-year follow-up, Drug-Related Deaths (DRDs) in Slovenia and compared mortality and causes of death in deceased subjects who had been treated for addiction (DT) in specialized centres in Slovenia with those who had not been treated (DNT). A total of 223 DRD cases were found; in 60.1% of these, the cause was directly drug-related, and in 39.9% the cause was indirectly drug-related. 37.7% of DRDs were accidental, 27.4% were intentional and 35.0% were undetermined. The percentage of DT patients that were female was remarkably low. The treated patients who survived had a much lower mean age that patients in the DT and DNT cohorts; the DNT group was the one that had the highest mean age. Direct DRDs were more frequent in DNT than in DT patients. No differences were observed regarding the type of intentionality of death. Intentional poisoning by narcotics was less well represented in DT patients. On the whole, our data confirm the importance of agonist treatment in preventing narcotic-related deaths. In fact, the cause-of-death profile of deceased addicts in treatment is closer to that of the general population than that of deceased non-treated addicts.